SURVIVAL OF THE UNFIT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 171, 14 April 1919, Page 6

SURVIVAL OF THE UNFIT

WAR WASTAGE OF THE BEST MEN

STEPS TO REDRESS THE BALANCE (By "Tho Times's" Medical Correspondent.) War and influenza between them must by now have accounted for some 18,000,000 young men throughout the world; end tliev must have Tendered at least another 10,000,000 young men incapable of earning a living, and so unable or i.nwilling to marry. The. seriousness of this loss is not. as yet generally realised. It is not understood, for example, that there is a peculiar tragedy in the fact that upon the heels of the war should have come an epidemic with a selective tendenev for young adults, and these not the weak, but the strong, the fittest, tho most promising. The war reaped a harvest ohosen for it; the unfit largely escaped. Influenza came, and once again, at least in tho experience of many, the unfit fured hotter than the fit, the very young and the very old than those of active life. Death in these last yews and months has gathered the flower of the world's young manhood. We are not prepared to .say definitely that voung women have withstood the epidemic better than young men, but we think this will bo found to have oc curred. For one thing, women have not been crowded together in camps to the <=amo extent that men have been; they have not been exposed to the same hardships, they have had fewer calls upon their powers of resistance. They have been less exposed to infection, and ce a rule had more opportunity of taking care of themselves. Be that as it may, tho young; man. nower of the world, and especially of Europe, is reduced to a. very low figure, and the beat of the young manhood is lost. The future of the race is largely with the middle-aged and the unfit. Thousands of women are condemned to go single who in happier days would have become the mothers of families., What the economic and social effects are likely to be must remain a question of dispute. No man can tell. But the medical effects are less obscure It » not, for example, probable that untit fathers will beget robust sons; nor that fathers who by one means or another were able to avoid service, in the Army will breed a race of fighting men. n ho mothers mar do something to. save the situation, it is true; but men of weak stamina do not mate very often with vigorous and bravo women, One Temedy that suggests itself at once is a "reatly increased care of tho children of our'soldiers and sailors. These do, in fact, represent the hope of the nation. They, and they alone, inherit the traditions'of our race which have made cur race "lorious. Their value is above all •computation at this time. Again, every assistance should be given those of our soldiers and sailors who are left to, us to marry at once. Economic barriers should bo removed; inducement should bo held out. The old economic prejudice against married men with families is now no longer merely dangerous; it is fatal. "Finally, the unmarried mother must be helped and protected. It is a matter of national urgency.